【英语听和读】达芬奇艺术展

 Callum: Hello, I'm Callum Robertson and this is Entertainment. In this programme

we're going to be taking a look at a new exhibition that has recently opened at

London's Victoria and Albert Museum

The exhibition is entitled Leonardo da Vinci, Experience, Experiment and

Design and to tell us about it I spoke¹ to Thereza Wells who is one of the

curators of the exhibition, which means she is one of the people responsible for

organising it, setting it up and looking after it.

Throughout her career she's worked on a number of projects relating to

Leonardo and I first asked her to tell us a little bit about the man and why we

are still fascinated by him today.

Thereza Wells

Well Leonardo da Vinci was a man who lived during the Renaissance². He was born in 1452

and died in 1519. He's probably most well known as the painter of the Mona Lisa but he was

much more than that. He had a huge interest in the sciences, in maths, he studied anatomy³,

human anatomy. He was an engineer, he was interested in making military tools for war and

he was a botanist⁴. So he did all sorts of things and I think that's probably why there's this

enduring interest that every generation finds even today and every generation finds something

new to see, to learn about Leonardo.

Callum: Although Leonardo da Vinci is perhaps best known as the painter of the Mona

Lisa, he was far more than an artist. He was interested in, studied and

experimented in a wide range of sciences. It's this variety of interests that 

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Thereza believes captures the imagination even today. The exhibition is called

Experience, Experiment and Design and I went on to ask Thereza the

significance of those words as the title.

Thereza Wells

The words are very carefully chosen, the words of the title of the exhibition. What Leonardo

believed was that you couldn't understand the world, you could not gain knowledge of the

world without actually experiencing it and without actually experimenting with it. What I

mean to say is that he believed you could not understand the world just reading books. He did

not have a classical education himself. He obviously read books but I think that without

having a classical education, he was able to think outside the box. He believed very much that

you had to learn from the world by sort of experiencing it and that's what we're tackling in the

exhibition and he experienced that and he wrote about that in his many thousands of sheets of

notebooks and drawings that exist today and this exhibition is tackling how he thought on

paper and how he demonstrated his knowledge of the world on paper.

Callum: The words of the title of the exhibition relate very much to the way that

Leonardo worked, how he developed his understanding of the world. Not just

from reading books but through experiences and experiments. Thereza said he

was able to think out of the box. This is quite a modern expression which

means someone is able to have ideas that are not part of what is already known

– he or she can come up with creative, imaginative and new ideas to solve

problems.

Many of Leonardo's designs based on his ability to 'think out of the box' still

exist today and it is these that form an important part of the exhibition.

I went on to ask Thereza about the exhibition, what can people see there and is

it a practical 'hands-on' exhibition with exhibits people can touch and 

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experiment with themselves. What tool does she say the exhibition uses to

illustrate⁵ to the public the way that Leonardo thought?

Thereza Wells

The main core of the exhibition are 60 sheets, drawings and notebooks. They are definitely

not 'hands-on', it's really 'mind-on'. It's really about what was going on inside Leonardo's mind.

So it's a very, quite an intense exhibition but what we've done to sort of help people to

understand Leonardo's thoughts is to animate⁶ those drawings and to animate really the words

that he was writing. And these animations⁸ are suspended above the drawings so you will look

down at the drawing, you can read the label, you can examine the drawing and then above you,

you will look up and there will be a computer-generated animation⁷ of the drawing and

hopefully you say "a-ha, that's what he's talking about" because when you look at these

drawings you really believe that Leonardo must have wished that they could move. Many of

them are really full of motion and we hope that the animations will show that as well.

Callum: Well because the exhibits are Leonardo's original documents they are not really

hands-on! You can't touch them – but Thereza says they are 'mind on'. They

make you think. And to help visitors to the exhibition understand the drawings

there are computer-generated animations above the exhibits.

Leonardo da Vinci Experience, Experiment and Design is at London's Victoria

and Albert Museum from the 14th of September 2006 until the 7th of January

2007.

That's all from this edition of Entertainment. 

1 spoke   

n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说

参考例句：

• They sourced the spoke nuts from our company.他们的轮辐螺帽是从我们公司获得的。
• The spokes of a wheel are the bars that connect the outer ring to the centre.辐条是轮子上连接外圈与中心的条棒。

2 renaissance   

n.复活，复兴，文艺复兴

参考例句：

• The Renaissance was an epoch of unparalleled cultural achievement.文艺复兴是一个文化上取得空前成就的时代。
• The theme of the conference is renaissance Europe.大会的主题是文艺复兴时期的欧洲。

3 anatomy   

n.解剖学，解剖；功能，结构，组织

参考例句：

• He found out a great deal about the anatomy of animals.在动物解剖学方面，他有过许多发现。
• The hurricane's anatomy was powerful and complex.对飓风的剖析是一项庞大而复杂的工作。

4 botanist   

n.植物学家

参考例句：

• The botanist introduced a new species of plant to the region.那位植物学家向该地区引入了一种新植物。
• I had never talked with a botanist before,and I found him fascinating.我从没有接触过植物学那一类的学者，我觉得他说话极有吸引力。

5 illustrate   

v.举例说明，阐明；图解，加插图

参考例句：

• The company's bank statements illustrate its success.这家公司的银行报表说明了它的成功。
• This diagram will illustrate what I mean.这个图表可说明我的意思。

6 animate   

v.赋于生命，鼓励；adj.有生命的，有生气的

参考例句：

• We are animate beings,living creatures.我们是有生命的存在，有生命的动物。
• The girls watched,little teasing smiles animating their faces.女孩们注视着，脸上挂着调皮的微笑，显得愈加活泼。

7 animation   

n.活泼，兴奋，卡通片／动画片的制作

参考例句：

• They are full of animation as they talked about their childhood.当他们谈及童年的往事时都非常兴奋。
• The animation of China made a great progress.中国的卡通片制作取得很大发展。

8 animations   

n.生气( animation的名词复数 )；兴奋；动画片；（指电影、录像、电脑游戏的）动画制作

参考例句：

• You'll see your team cheerleaders and mascot performing new animations as well. 你会看到啦啦队队长跟吉祥物也都会有全新的动作。 来自互联网
• Ability to create simple movie and animations using graphic & multimedia software. 能够用平面和多媒体软件制作简单的电影及动画。 来自互联网